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Tales Of The South Pacific

by James A. Michener

3.87 · rating details · 2,491 ratings · 123 reviews

"Truly one of the most remarkable books to come out of the war. Mr. Michener is a born story-teller."
THE NEW YORK TIMES
Winner of the 1948 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
Enter the exotic world of the South Pacific, meet the men and women caught up in the drama of a big war. The young Marine who falls madly in love with a beautiful Tonkinese girl. Nurse Nellie and her French plan...more

Mass Market Paperback, 384 pages

Published September 12th 1984 by Fawcett

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Sep 08, 2007

Matthew Klobucher rated it

I think this book is a must-read for any American in the post-WWII era. Framed as a collection of loosely-connected short stories, narrated from a single perspectivce, Mitchner weaves together themes of love, loss, and struggle with a lucid and sometimes technical commentary on the American war effort in the Pacific theater. His characters are both intensely human and larger than life, and the developing theme throughout the book is that titanic and often tragic effors contribute to the betterme...more

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Jan 01, 2012

Carl rated it

This book, which was the first winner of the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1948, is a collection of little stories about World War II in the South Pacific. James Michener was in the U.S. Navy, and traveled widely through the area, giving him a unique view of various places, people, and events, and these must have been quite fresh in his mind when he wrote the book.

The musical South Pacific was based upon the book. While I read the book some of the music began going through my head, p...more

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Aug 22, 2010

Laura rated it

I would never have read this book if the book club here wasn't reading it. I'm glad that I did, though. This is the book that the musical "South Pacific" is based on. The book is much better than the fluffy play whose only redeeming number is "You've Got to Be Carefully Taught."
Michener is an impressive writer simply by the sheer mass and volume of the stories that he writes. He tells the stories of at least a dozen different characters as he details the encounters o...moreI would never have read this book if the book club here wasn't reading it. I'm glad that I did, though. This is the book that the musical "South Pacific" is based on. The book is much better than the fluffy play whose only redeeming number is "You've Got to Be Carefully Taught."
Michener is an impressive writer simply by the sheer mass and volume of the stories that he writes. He tells the stories of at least a dozen different characters as he details the encounters of American navy men with the South Pacific French plantation owners and indigenous people.
Michener's main theme in this book is racism, and it's telling that his final chapter is in a cemetery on an island where the African-American cemetery caretaker says that "Up here everybody gets along... Don't make much difference if you're colored or white... When you're dead you forget all that stuff." True, indeed.
However, at the same time, Michener's language seems quite racist and biased itself. The Japanese fighters are always "Japs" or "Nips" or "yellow men." Was Michener just so much a part of the times that he reflects the entrenched racism of the era? Or is he making a comment in using that very language himself? It's not clear to me.
I also was surprised to read a book that, although it points out some of the illogical parts of war (although not anywhere near as much as "Catch-22"), the story seems to glorify war. Things seem very black and white. The Japanese are the bad guys, the Americans the heroes.
Something interesting and sickening that I learned while reading this novel is that the American Navy used live coral in the South Pacific for their airstrips. The live coral, if kept moist with sea water every three days, would bind together perfectly and provide an excellent landing strip with just the right amount of solidity. Somehow, this image of digging up live coral to be used for airstrips revealed the complete and horrible destruction that war entails more than any other scene in the book. (less)

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Jul 22, 2009

Robert rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: 2008-9-season

This is a book I have heard about for years and finally spurred myself to read - it did not disappoint. The characters and settings from the stage play and the movie are here but they are far from being central to the stories. The book is like a cross between Hemingway and Cain - a product of its time that surpasses the constraints of time. "The Landing on Kuralei" reads like the first twenty minutes of "Saving Private Ryan" looks, brutal and honest. "Coral Sea" c...more

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Aug 12, 2009

Heather rated it

I have always wanted to read this, being a HUGE fan of the Rogers and Hammerstein musical adaptation. The only thing I had heard about it was that the adaptation was very loose and that the book was pretty racist, reflecting the times. I found both to be true. It took awhile to get into it, but then you meet such compelling characters as Bus Adams, Luther Billis, and Tony Fry, as well as the narrator, whose voice I thoroughly enjoyed, and you are hooked. It is a book about people, and these ...more

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May 14, 2010

Kyle rated it

Shelves: 2010-reads, biography, history, war

I read this in preparation of seeing the current touring production of "South Pacific" this Sunday. The book is much better than I was even anticipating. It's unexpectedly haunting and quite moving. Essentially a collection of short stories with a few recurring characters laced throughout it really provides a panoramic exploration of life for American soldiers in the Pacific waiting for World War II to get started. The strongest stories are reserved for the center of the book, like "...more

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Jul 31, 2010

Steve rated it

Shelves: recent, fiction-historical

James Michener's first big book. If you didn't live through World War II, which is most of us alive today, read this book. It is very much about the lives, loves, losses, costs, social, class and racial conflicts, and organizational thinking of that era. Books like Snow Falling on Cedars may be more accessible today, and that is really the point. Reading this, I felt immersed in the war in the Pacific, and all of it, since most of the book is about the rear-areas.

The broadway/film ...more

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Dec 13, 2008

Jack Kirby and the X-man rated it

Shelves: fiction, library_book, military, historical-fiction, author-us, setting-pacific-vanuatu, setting-pacific-solomon-islands, 2008, setting-pacific, 1940s

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. I love the typical Michener epic scale of this book. I used to sit down and read Michener for hours at a time, but parenting seems to mean I can only catch 1/2 hour to an hour here and there. This book is perfect for this - there are a number of recurring characters which maintains that epic scale - but in general they are pretty self contained stories of 10-60 pages long - just right for a baby's nap!

For the majority of the book the war is simply forming a backdrop, an excuse fo...more

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Jun 17, 2011

Andrew rated it

This is the book that gave me wanderlust. Read first at the age of 14, it communicates the adventure of travel and of seeing the world,
Nellie Forbush style. But the tale of Nellie, told well in the movie version of "South Pacific", is not nearly as powerful as many of the other stories. Michener has crafted about half of the stories so that a powerful punchline is delivered at the end of the short story.

I read this book before even reading "Hawaii" and ha...more

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Jan 24, 2009

Pamela rated it

I am pleasantly pleased with this book. I have read lots of historical fiction on many topics but none from the South Pacific. Granted, I appreciate a good war novel and most of the novels I have read have been about the Vietnam War. But this was a well-written and well-balanced personal account of the fight in the South Pacific during WWII.

This is a war novel that can be appreciated by both men and women. Sometimes accounts of war are geared for the macho reader and get very t...more

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Sep 08, 2011

Christopher MacMillan rated it

Shelves: pulitzer-prize-winners-and-nominees

With its technical army-related terms, Michener's dark writing style, and an overwhelming amount of characters, Tales of the South Pacific was not at all the upbeat breeze of a book I had expected it to be based upon the musical. I had first picked this up in October, ploughed through the first four stories, grew frustrated, and put it down. Six months later, I decided to give it another go, and this time - knowing what to expect - I found myself drawn into the exotic world that Michener creates...moreWith its technical army-related terms, Michener's dark writing style, and an overwhelming amount of characters, Tales of the South Pacific was not at all the upbeat breeze of a book I had expected it to be based upon the musical. I had first picked this up in October, ploughed through the first four stories, grew frustrated, and put it down. Six months later, I decided to give it another go, and this time - knowing what to expect - I found myself drawn into the exotic world that Michener creates for us in the pages of this novel.

Told from the point-of-view of an anonymous Navy officer, we witness war-life on the islands in the South Pacific: the fear, the paranoia, the daily routines, but mostly the tediousness and what these soldiers, lieutenants, nurses, colonels, and officers do to occupy their time in the idyllic tropical paradise in which they find themselves. The episodic stories are intertwined, with certain characters - like the all-American pilot Bus Adams and the charming, girl-crazy Tony Fry - appearing frequently, whiles others - like the vulgar native merchant Bloody Mary and the love-struck Lt. Joe Cable - only appear once. But regardless of how often they show up in the pages of Tales of the South Pacific, each character is interesting, intriguing, and helps to make this book even more spellbinding.

Michener's writing style is really smart. The stories are realistic enough to be perfectly believable, and yet there's almost a folklore quality about them. Like tales of the war told by someone who was there, and who is now recounting them over a drink, there's just a bit of exaggeration to them, and yet we recognize the truth therein. With lots of symbolism, morals, and ambiguity, Michener gives us a whole lot to ponder over when reading between the lines of each story, too. He challenges us to find our own meaning in each one of these moving, colourful vignettes, and that meaning is not always obvious.

The luscious, exotic atmosphere with its white sand beaches, tropical flowers and plants, erupting volcanoes, and tribal natives. The strict, no-nonsense military life, with its rules and regulations, its guns, its planes, its boats, and its materialistic enlisted men who are bored and missing American life. The two are juxtaposed in this rich book, and I am so happy that I decided to give it another chance (and to even re-read the stories I had already read). Knowing what to expect this time around, I saw all of the beauty that this emotionally-stirring, thought-provoking novel has to offer.

This was wonderful, and I'm making a promising to myself to re-read this again one day. Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. I am so happy that a book like this could have won the Pulitzer Prize.(less)

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Jul 05, 2009

Rob rated it

Shelves: favorites, pulitzer-prize, historical-fiction

Michener's first novel and my first Michener read. It will certainly not be my last. Excellent book. Written just after WW II and based on Michener's experiences on the South Pacific front.

Each chapter was separate, but yet interwoven with the others. A bunch of related short stories. Incredibly easy to read and hard to put down. You are taken into the everyday lives of soldiers on different islands, as well as the native population. I now have a real taste of a life spent wai...more

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Jul 10, 2009

Dennis Cline rated it

Tales of the South Pacific - Michener's first book is truly a gem. Compiled from articles he wrote for the Navy newspaper while serving in the South Pacific, he earned his first Pulitzer. RKO Films was quick to buy the rights thinking it would make a great movie. John Wayne and the Sands of Iwo Jimo played a hand in RKO never producing the film. Not to be deterred, Michener sold the stage rights to a Broadway producer who promptly developed the timeless musical South Pacific.
If you are ...more

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Jul 29, 2011

Herb rated it

Interesting. More about the racial, social and sexual mores of the WWII-era than anything else. Compared to similar novels of the era, this one probably seemed a little more jaded, not to mention controversial. A little too much romance in it for me, but maybe that's what his editor thought would be needed to sell the book. Otherwise it would only have been a bunch of stories about Sailors and Marines going nuts from boredom while waiting for another invasion to kick off. All in all, probably t...more

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Apr 09, 2011

Adam K. rated it

The lower star rating for this one is not entirely Michener's fault. He won the pulitzer prize for it, and who am I to besmirch that? It's Michener's first book, too, so that's quite an achievement. This collection of interconnected stories was published right after WWII and is thus very current and relevant. Most of them have to do with soldiers' lives in the Pacific in between battles and waiting for the action to happen. Their wonder at the beauty of their environment is juxtaposed again...more

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Aug 12, 2011

Sarah rated it

I’ve read some of Michener’s work before, but this is much different from the other titles I have under my belt. While they were essentially short stories linked together because they were all pertaining to the history of a geographic location, these were linked mainly by the people they involved all pushing towards one specific goal. Okay, now that I say that, it does sound similar. But these short stories are very separate from each other. While the characters sometimes cross over, each entry ...more

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Nov 06, 2011

Robin rated it

Shelves: adventure, biography, fiction

This is James Michener’s first book, hammered out on an old typewriter in a Quonset hut on Vanuatu during WWII. He hadn’t written before, but the intense exposure to the pressures of war and Michener’s curiosity about human character under such pressure inspired him to stay up nights on end telling stories. Michener tells the stories of Americans of all military ranks from varied backgrounds and their interactions with each other, island natives, and island colonials. These tales are told in fir...more

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Jul 19, 2009

Sam Nelson rated it

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Jun 15, 2009

Yim Sui Fung rated it

Shelves: short-story-poem-anthologies

Howard Winant points to the questioning of unchallenged American values—“was the United States really ‘the land of the free, and the home of the brave’? (148)—as the “end of innocence,” led by the black civil rights movement and sympathizers. In his use of the facetious, dramatized, bigoted caricature of a young Midwestern nurse, Nellie Forbush, Michener addresses the end of innocence by calling attention to Nurse Forbush’s ignorant racism through her own absurd, erratic behavior. Specifically, ...moreHoward Winant points to the questioning of unchallenged American values—“was the United States really ‘the land of the free, and the home of the brave’? (148)—as the “end of innocence,” led by the black civil rights movement and sympathizers. In his use of the facetious, dramatized, bigoted caricature of a young Midwestern nurse, Nellie Forbush, Michener addresses the end of innocence by calling attention to Nurse Forbush’s ignorant racism through her own absurd, erratic behavior. Specifically, the momentary suspension of her infatuation towards De Becque upon seeing his dark-skinned daughters casts her in an irrational, brutish light. Michener’s description of Nellie’s violent emotional and physical aversion to children suggests that he himself disapproves of such behavior, and was generally reproving such ignorance as could be found at that time in the United States, particularly in the more rural areas, seen in Nellie’s own background: “Her entire Arkansas upbringing made it impossible for her to deny the teachings of her youth” (138). We can understand the negative connotations attributed to Nellie’s character especially in the juxtaposition of her rant—“Emile De Becque had lived with the nigger. He had nigger children. If she married him, they would be her step-daughters” (138)—and the repeated use (or variation on) the word “children.” Such hatred, as read in Nellie’s “revulsion,” seems incongruent and simply wrong when directed towards children, a point which Michener emphasizes by lumping such loathing with more innocent vocabulary (too, “step-daughters”). Furthermore, after her tantrum, Nellie becomes even more of a ridiculous character in Michener’s own description, behaving like a child (“‘No!’ Nellie cried in real anguish, stamping her foot. ‘It isn’t that! It’s something you don’t know.’” (139)) and taking actions that, out of context of the rest of the narrative, might otherwise illustrate a truly insane person. Her extreme swings of emotion—between recoiling from De Becque and the children for his involvement with their dark-skinned mothers, and sudden, feverish desire for the adventure that living on an island and entering into such an exotic family suggest—discredit her character, and advocate for a reading that holds at least some intentional degree of irony on Michener’s part. In this way, by creating a truly ridiculous, non-commendable character who’s defining trait at the end of the narrative is her deplorable racism (towards children), the author himself challenges the same as-yet-unquestioned values of American life that the “end of innocence” confronts, and suggests that racial discrimination not be left unopposed, but, rooted in ignorance, should be corrected by education and the entry into a new post-war era of equality.(less)

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Dec 19, 2011

Eva Nickelson rated it

The book is a set of stories that are loosely tied together. They depict the build up to a battle during WWII in the Pacific theater. This isn't a book so much about battle (although those scenes do exist), but the waiting that is involved for the enlisted soldiers, and even the lower ranking officers. Michener portrays these men as out of sync with their regular lives, due to both the war and the location. The South Pacific islands are so different from what the US soldiers were used to, that t...more

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Nov 18, 2010

Debbie rated it

Just finished this this morning. I found it very moving, quietly told. Moments I particularly remember were the men singing together and remembering their last leave on US soil before they go in to fight. Also the lonely young man with the pen pal girl friend he has never met. Although told in a very simple straight forward way I felt as if I knew the characters. Even characters I generally liked didn't always behave well--which made them all the more human.

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Feb 11, 2011

Kathy Petersen rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: x-feb-11-thru-jan-12

Like many of my generation (I just missed being a Baby Boomer), I was enchanted with the movie—and somewhat surprised by the book. On re-reading it these many years later I discovered a realism missing from the film and at the same time a kind of innocent nostalgia for a free and emotionally high time in the recent past. I do believe that Michener experienced what he wrote, allowing of course for the storyteller's excusable embroidery.

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Nov 26, 2008

Ron rated it

James Michener's first book. Mostly a collection of stories of his experiences as a Navy Officer stationed in the South Pacific during WWII. Great descriptions of the U.S. Navy assaults of the many Japnaese occupied islands, along with very colorful accounts of the Navy interacting with the native South Sea Islanders. This book was the basis for Rogers and Hammerstine's famous musical, "South Pacific".

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Mar 07, 2010

David Mackendrick rated it

Enjoyable , Story of a military base in the south pacific amidst the harsh temperatures and humidity , and of waiting , the constant waiting to feel or be a part of what these men and women went there for. To be part of the war effort. Also the story of native inhabitants struggle to survive and co-habit with the influx of military base forced upon them, and of tearing down walls of prejudice.

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Dec 10, 2008

Tom rated it

Fascinating short stories set in the South Pacific during WWII. Better than most of his longer fiction.
In the later chapters the interconnected stories start to carry more emotion and force, turning a light read into more impressive work. Wording is very reflective of the 1940s and shows the widespread bigotry that was common at the time. Worth reading despite this flaw, like Mark Twain today.

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Aug 25, 2011

KW in CT rated it

Shelves: pulitzers-read

I read this as part of my Pulitzer project. It is the story of enlisted men and women in the South Pacific in WWII.

This book seems like such a throw back to me, even the size and the cover art ... who carries books like these anymore? I felt like I was reading a bodice ripper. Oh and it's embarrassing to walk around with a book by Michener ... its like you are in "That 70s Show" or something. And then there are the silly, dinner show theatre tunes that play in one's head.
...more

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Aug 11, 2011

Patricia Burroughs rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: american, literary, pulitzer-prize, favorites

I loved this book. Having grown up with the movie musical South Pacific as one of my favorites, I was thrilled to finally read the source material. Written before Michener decided to start every novel at the moment of creation, and before he started loading his books with all sorts of historical minutia as well as story.

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May 08, 2009

Tom Eldridge rated it

Stunning!! Loved this book. All I knew about it was that it was the basis for Rodgers and Hammersteins South Pacific (actually its a small part of the book), but was completely taken in by the story of the miltary personel, nurses, and locals in these paradise islands during WW II. Totally captivating and utterly wonderful!!

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Nov 22, 2010

Bayneeta rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: fiction

Thoroughly enjoyed this first Michener novel: episodic stories with some overlapping characters during World War II; killing time and preparing for a long-awaited strike. The Broadway musical and movie South Pacific were based on several of these stories. Told in a straight forward non-romanticized and un-sentimental manner, it was very moving at times.

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Jul 20, 2011

Andrew Hardin rated it

I was cast as Cmdr. Harbison in my schools version of South Pacific and he really doesn't have alot of backstory in the play so I read this book to get a better feel for my character. Made it much easier to act and it helped not make Harbison a small side character but a true friend to the captain

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About James A. Michener

James Albert Michener is best known for his sweeping multi-generation historical fiction sagas, usually focusing on and titled after a particular geographical region. His first novel, Tales of the South Pacific, which inspired the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical South Pacific, won the 1948 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

Toward the end of his life, he created the Journey Prize, awarded ann...more

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